Classen: NQF trumps vendors in meaningful use 'tug-of-war'

We unfortunately missed the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's annual forum on quality improvement last week, but Hospitals & Health Networks had a whole crew down in Orlando, Fla., to cover that event, particularly the growing number of sessions related to health IT.

Notably, longtime health IT advocate Dr. David Classen, CMO of Computer Sciences Corp., said that quality advocates won a "tug-of-war" within the Obama administration over how to define "meaningful use" of electronic health records, at the expense of a vendor-centric model. "The National Quality Forum won," Classen said. "The quality and safety model was adopted, and NQF is the place to watch," HHN reports. "There was a strong belief on the insurance side of CMS that the only way to achieve efficient care is to achieve better care," Clausen explained.

In a keynote address, national coordinator for health IT Dr. David Blumenthal reiterated his intention to have a proposed definition for meaningful use out before the end of the year. (We understand that the federal Health IT Policy Committee will issue its advisory definition when it meets tomorrow in Washington. Blumenthal and his cohorts at CMS likely will base their proposed rules on the committee's recommendation.) Blumenthal also voiced his desire for the framework for meaningful use to lead to "fairly cheap models of exchange" and more "lightweight" structures for health information exchange in the future, HHN reports.

For more from the IHI forum:
- check out this Hospitals & Health Networks blog

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